Career
She taught music and piano at elementary school in Kansas City, Missouri from 1906-1913. Hortense Parker was the fourth of six children born to the free people of color John Parker and Miranda {Boulden} Parker in Ripley, Ohio. Her mother was freeborn in Cincinnati.
Born into slavery, her father had bought his freedom and became a noted abolitionist, inventor, and industrialist.
Before the American Civil War, he aided hundreds of slaves to escape by the Underground Railroad. Her parents" house has been designated a National Historic Landmark and restored, now called the John P. Parker House after her father.
Hortense Parker and her two younger sisters studied music as children, in addition to traditional subjects. Hortense went to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College), where she graduated in 1883, the first known African-American graduate.
She worked in several cities teaching music, among them Kansas City, where Parker taught from 1906-1913 at Lincoln School (later World War Yates).
